I know about pride in heritage. My Dad was a Norwegian, and proud of it, but not so proud that he couldn’t give up the home farm, the family, his country, and strike out to America for a better chance at a good life. At the age of 18—all by himself, he boarded a freighter down in England, was assigned to the poor person’s steerage bunks, survived sailing the rough winter Atlantic with a bunch of sea-sick cabin mates. When the freighter finally got to New York City, not speaking or reading English, all on his lonesome he found his train to Chicago, and by the end of February, 1929, he was in Wisconsin, working for room and board on a relative’s farm. And then in October of that year the Stock Market crashed and poverty as bad as what he endured in the old country became a way of life for the next ten years.
Pride in heritage. I was raised with it as a kid, and was sometimes embarrassed by it as teenager, with Dad’s often repeated tales of the old country, or his sitting out in the back yard on Sunday summer afternoons, with his old Norwegian cronies telling jokes to another in Norwegian and it seemed to me even laughing in Norwegian. So proud was he of his heritage that Dad joined a club called the "Sunnforlaget" for Norwegians from his home area on the West Coast of Norway. It infected me. I went to college and I suppose one could fairly say wasted a couple of years taking Norwegian language classes. I mean, what on earth would I ever use that for?
I know about pride in our American heritage, because I was raised with that, too. As a kid I learned how to play the trumpet and in high school got to be pretty good at it. The school band played for Memorial Day parades and I spent many May mornings out at the town cemetery, listening to beer-bellied WWII veterans give speeches that sometimes brought tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat. And being a trumpet guy, I was asked to play taps near the end of the ceremonies, my friend Pete Hanson, off in the distance behind the cedar trees playing the echo part. Every once in a while I was excused from school to go out to a graveside and play taps at a veterans burial. Now, at every graveside service for a veteran I preside at when taps is played (on tape, sorry to say) and the flag is given to a grieving family I still feel powerful emotions.
We’ve all been experiencing powerful, patriotic emotions ever since September 11. The sense of "United We Stand" is something we’ve not felt for a long time as a nation. And there seems to be a renewed pride in our heritage as upholders of freedom. We are a free country. We not going to let any terrorist organization like Bin Laden’s get us down. We’re going to be strong and do whatever it takes to win. We’re not going to be slaves to fear!
That sounds pretty close to the words, "We are Abraham’s children. We have never been anyone’s slaves. How can you say we will be set free?!" The leaders who argued against Jesus’ challenge were proud descendants of Abraham. They’d been taught to believe what their Scriptures and their teachers said: all the promises of God were their rightful inheritance, and now, suffering under the oppressive reign of Rome, and hoping for a Warrior Messiah, they didn’t recognize that Jesus himself was the fulfillment of the promises and the Law and the prophets—and their only hope for real freedom. The Ultimate was standing among them, but they wanted to settle for something less: ethnic patriotism, tied up with the rules and rituals and politics of their great religion.
"We are Abraham’s children. We have never been anyone’s slaves. How can you say we will be set free?!" It has been difficult for God’s people of every era to resist the temptation to put their faith in military might and political power instead of the freedom-giving power of God. Near the end of the High Middle Ages, the Church in Western Europe by its decrees and actions claimed that it was the ultimate, that it possessed the powers to take care of everything for everyone, both in this world and the next. The church ruled. Period. But this was not good. The peasants lived in slavery to the lords and bishops and in terror of hell and fear of Christ himself, who was portrayed as the All-Powerful Judge. Made bold by his discovery of the Gospel of God’s forgiveness offered freely to all who simply believed in Christ along came Luther, the loudmouth of faith and gospel freedom. Luther preached and taught that the answer to the fears and anxieties of the people was not allegiance to the domination system of the church, but rather to Jesus Christ. If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. Only allegiance to Jesus means real freedom.
We show our faith in Christ by the way conduct our lives in freedom according to the gospel: We try to live morally. We stand on the side of justice. We care for the poor and the outcast. We pray for reconciliation and peace and even for our enemies. And above all else, we worship, gaining perspective on the heritage we claim and on the passions and problems of our day.
And so I go back to the beginning: Like many of you are in the habit of doing, Dad came to church Sunday after Sunday. Through the Great Depression, WWII, the Korean War, the assassination of President Kennedy, the Viet Nam War, the turmoil of the sixties and early seventies when it seemed our nation was coming apart the seams, Dad was there, fourth pew from the front Sunday after Sunday, until the Sunday he died, Memorial Day weekend, 1975. He even endured the quirks of six different pastors!
Steadfast, simple faith helps avoid becoming slaves to lesser things so we can be free in Christ. We may honor our ethnic origins, but as Christians, we honor our Savior even more. We may believe that the United States of America is the greatest nation the world has ever seen, but Christians believe that the Kingdom of God we inherit through Christ is greater still.
Therefore, pride in heritage and tradition must never distract us from what is ultimate: faith in Jesus Christ as Savior of the world. Unlike any emperor, king, nation or army, Jesus has conquered sin, death and the power of evil. When we pledge allegiance to Jesus first, then we are set free from the bitter fear that gives way to rage and the urge to kill, and from the hopelessness that eats away at courage. If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. No matter what happens next in our nation and world, God is charge and Jesus is Lord. And His kingdom is ours forever. Amen.